Are we paying attention? If for anything, we should not leave the issues of climate change to politicians, economists, businessmen and the likes. We should bring the artists: the singers, the dancers, the poets and yes, the filmmakers, and the likes. If you did not catch Avatar last year as it was rudely interrupted by such copycats as Ang Panday and Hello and Goodbye, and the likes, you still have the chance. The film is back on the theaters for another run.
For all its rich and intricate meanings, metaphors and symbolisms (Avatar, Pandora, Eywa, even the warrior princess is given a veritable name — Neytiri), the film is about shifting paradigm, the one necessary ingredient if we want to have anything substantial to happen to halt mankind’s doom from climate change. We are still not changing our mindsets.
The failure of the recently concluded Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change (COP15), for example, was not the absence of significant laws to cut CO2 emissions, especially with the big three—China, India and the US. This is way out of target, and is simply following capitalist formula.
Almost 150 significant (I suppose) world leaders met and we are left with an empty bag. Again, are we paying attention? When critical and life-saving decisions are left to politicians (like GMA), businessmen, or economists (again, like GMA), you’re in for a disaster. The same rule applies to lawyers (like the husband of GMA). A lawyer-friend captures the raison d’être with a dash of joke. According to a lawyer-friend, he’d like his epithet to read: Here lies a lawyer, even in death he lies.
Politicians, businessmen, economists, lawyers and the likes (or at least the ones that strut and fret on our televisions) swagger with a kind of greed so disruptive and consuming, it will even rival the furies of Mt. Mayon.
Moreover, politicians and the likes are mainly on-lookers. Although, they sometimes get the Nobel Peace Prize, for what? Being an on-looker, I guess. Better still, for sending 30,000 fresh American troops to Afghanistan. Simply put, politicians and the likes are mostly self-serving sitting ducks (with apologies to ducks) though they normally brandish that they enter politics to serve the people.
The film Avatar showed this, and more. The Na’vis, the blue humanoid beings inhabiting planet Pandora, show us to respect life, not only ours but everyone and everything in it. You only take life when it is absolutely necessary, and you even have to apologize for it. The lessons from the Na’vis even go further, they listen to nature/life/Eywa as if it is part of their essence, of their being, of their history. This whole philosophy is best captured when Jake Sully, the bida, finally says “I see you” to his beloved Neytiri. Life is recognized for all its worth, for all its essence, for all its love.
We need to educate ourselves, work together, and band together the Na’vi way, especially when assaulted by greedy politicians and the likes. And then, the politicians and their likes will probably listen, probably act, but definitely be marginalized and be brought to their waterloo.
The appeal of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a deserving Nobel Peace Prize winner, before the start of the COP15 should not only serve as a warning, but a continuing battle cry that we should bring to the next major round of climate change decisions in Mexico this year. He admonished: “We marched in Berlin, and the wall fell; We marched for South Africa, and apartheid fell; We march at Copenhagen, and we will get a Real Deal.”
Indeed, we should not only get our acts together, we should start thinking in ecological synergies. If you get to watch Avatar, there’s your answer on how we should actually think ecology. The Prince of Wales, ironically though, speaking at the opening of the COP15 captures the idea: “The future of mankind can be assured only if we can rediscover ways in which to live as part of nature, not apart from them.”
Think Avatar and think climate change.
tobe_wtdpoor@yahoo.com
For all its rich and intricate meanings, metaphors and symbolisms (Avatar, Pandora, Eywa, even the warrior princess is given a veritable name — Neytiri), the film is about shifting paradigm, the one necessary ingredient if we want to have anything substantial to happen to halt mankind’s doom from climate change. We are still not changing our mindsets.
The failure of the recently concluded Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change (COP15), for example, was not the absence of significant laws to cut CO2 emissions, especially with the big three—China, India and the US. This is way out of target, and is simply following capitalist formula.
Almost 150 significant (I suppose) world leaders met and we are left with an empty bag. Again, are we paying attention? When critical and life-saving decisions are left to politicians (like GMA), businessmen, or economists (again, like GMA), you’re in for a disaster. The same rule applies to lawyers (like the husband of GMA). A lawyer-friend captures the raison d’être with a dash of joke. According to a lawyer-friend, he’d like his epithet to read: Here lies a lawyer, even in death he lies.
Politicians, businessmen, economists, lawyers and the likes (or at least the ones that strut and fret on our televisions) swagger with a kind of greed so disruptive and consuming, it will even rival the furies of Mt. Mayon.
Moreover, politicians and the likes are mainly on-lookers. Although, they sometimes get the Nobel Peace Prize, for what? Being an on-looker, I guess. Better still, for sending 30,000 fresh American troops to Afghanistan. Simply put, politicians and the likes are mostly self-serving sitting ducks (with apologies to ducks) though they normally brandish that they enter politics to serve the people.
The film Avatar showed this, and more. The Na’vis, the blue humanoid beings inhabiting planet Pandora, show us to respect life, not only ours but everyone and everything in it. You only take life when it is absolutely necessary, and you even have to apologize for it. The lessons from the Na’vis even go further, they listen to nature/life/Eywa as if it is part of their essence, of their being, of their history. This whole philosophy is best captured when Jake Sully, the bida, finally says “I see you” to his beloved Neytiri. Life is recognized for all its worth, for all its essence, for all its love.
We need to educate ourselves, work together, and band together the Na’vi way, especially when assaulted by greedy politicians and the likes. And then, the politicians and their likes will probably listen, probably act, but definitely be marginalized and be brought to their waterloo.
The appeal of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a deserving Nobel Peace Prize winner, before the start of the COP15 should not only serve as a warning, but a continuing battle cry that we should bring to the next major round of climate change decisions in Mexico this year. He admonished: “We marched in Berlin, and the wall fell; We marched for South Africa, and apartheid fell; We march at Copenhagen, and we will get a Real Deal.”
Indeed, we should not only get our acts together, we should start thinking in ecological synergies. If you get to watch Avatar, there’s your answer on how we should actually think ecology. The Prince of Wales, ironically though, speaking at the opening of the COP15 captures the idea: “The future of mankind can be assured only if we can rediscover ways in which to live as part of nature, not apart from them.”
Think Avatar and think climate change.
tobe_wtdpoor@yahoo.com
